The Cougar's Trade (26 page)

“You’re not helping.”

“Just being honest. Did you try calling her?”

“I just got up.” Hank started down the stairs, and paused in the middle, taking in the disaster area that was his unfinished living room. “Fuck, she deserves better than this.”

“I feel like we’re having about four different conversations at once. Pick one. I need to go screen a couple of Cougars who are seeking admission into the glaring.”

“Cougars from where?”

“Washington State. They come with pretty good referrals, I just need to go sniff them out and see if they’re legit. I’m going to meet them at the diner with Tito and Tiny.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

“I was going to let you sleep, and hoped you’d return the favor in a few days, since I suspect Sean’s gonna be out of it.”

“You really think that?” Hank had thought it, but he didn’t want to think it was true. Miles had saved him from the curse out of the goodness of her heart, but Hannah probably felt no such obligation for Sean, and nobody could expect her to.

“At this point, I can’t even pretend there’s a chance in hell they’re going to pull it together. It scares me, but I’m trying to be upbeat for Sean’s sake. I’m not sure what
La Bella Dama
is playing at with them
.
Let me take care of this transfer request, though. You deal with Miles.”

“She’s not here.”

“Okay, well, she’ll be back, probably tomorrow. I bet you can think of some things to do to prove to her you’re more or less decent until then. You don’t need a kid or a cat. I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who needs gimmicks.”

Hank’s gaze scanned the dusty living room. “But they couldn’t hurt.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“Just a little common courtesy. I think she’s long overdue for some.”

“That almost sounds romantic, but I’d have to check with Ellery to know for sure.”

“Well, she deserves that, too.”

“Good luck.” Mason disconnected, and Hank immediately brought up a text-messaging screen. He typed in a message for Miles, deemed it far too aggressive and whiny, and tried again.

I know you’re busy. I just wanted to make sure you’re coming back.

He deleted the end of that second sentence.

I just wanted to make sure
—

Make sure of what? That a little distance from the ranch hadn’t changed her mind about being his mate? She could walk away and he’d be fine. Physically, at least. He wasn’t so sure the same would hold true for all the other ways.

He tried one more time.

I know you’re busy, but I worry.

He hit
Send
only for “Not Deliverable” to pop up on his screen.

“What the fuck?” Had to be a service problem. He needed to get her onto the Foye plan sooner rather than later. He nudged the phone’s volume up in case she tried to call, then left the phone on the stairs. He started in one corner of the living room, wadding up drop cloths and disposing of plastic sheeting. It was so easy to forget there was an actual room under all the dust and renovation garbage. He would make it comfortable for her—a space that felt safe and inviting. A den, and not a cavern of horrors, as she’d referred to it to Ellery.

While clearing garbage from the built-in shelves, his fingers brushed against a sharp protrusion way at the back of the top one. He pulled a chair over and stood on it. The rectangular object turned out to be a small, familiar, blue leather-bound book. He blew off the coat of dust and cleaned the spine with his thumb. The faded gold embossing read
La Bella Dama, translated by E. Putnum
.

“Shit, I forgot that existed.” It had been his dad’s book once. It must have gotten mixed up with the books he’d moved out of Mom’s house years ago.

He hopped down and sat where he’d been standing, already thumbing through the pages. If memory served him correctly, Elizabeth Putnum had been a Cougar of his great-grandfather’s generation—a sort-of glaring historian. Yet another position in the group that had long since fallen by the wayside. If they’d had one, maybe they wouldn’t be so lost.

He stopped at an entry entitled “The Cougar’s Ear” and marveled at the simple black ink illustration. It was of a maiden on a bench with her head canted toward the reclining large cat at her feet. The caption read:
INTERLOCUTOR AND CONFIDANTE, THE EAR—TYPICALLY THE MATE OF AN ASSISTANT ALPHA OR A GLARING LIEUTENANT—OFTEN INTERCEDES ON THE BEHALF OF THE IGNORED, FOR SHE MAY UNDERSTAND THE AFFLICTION WELL HERSELF.

He let out a long breath. He’d certainly done his fair share of ignoring Miles, or trying to, anyway. He went on to read:
HER MATE IS TYPICALLY A MALE WHO HAS COURTED THE FAVOR OF THE LADY.

At that, Hank scoffed.
Him
with favor? He’d done little but disparage the goddess for her fickleness for the past year. It’d been a rough year. Then again, sometimes the dame’s favor wasn’t so easy to see. Mason had her seal of approval over his run as alpha, and had likely had it all along, but it had been made clear when she’d put that dark streak in his hair. That had been one of the few things they remembered about her lore, but evidence of her grace had probably always been there, should they think to look for it. Unfortunately, the Foyes weren’t good at reading subtle signs. They needed pictures and words…or being beat over the head with the truth.

On a hunch, he turned the page.

The Avenger.

In the drawing, a woman in a prairie dress—he checked the copyright date: 1898—leaned against a fence with a shotgun propped against the post. She seemed calm, relaxing with her arms resting atop the post and her head lay on her forearm. Lounging behind her was a cougar with a bandaged foot—a smaller cat, probably brand new to shifting. A child.

On the horizon was a massive fire, and he had a sneaking suspicion she was the one who’d set it.

“Damn.”

He didn’t even have to read the caption. If he had one guess whom that forgotten position was supposed to be filled by, he’d place his bets on the angry lady in his brother’s basement.

Cleaning could wait. He tucked the book into his back pocket and ran for the side door. Of course Hannah wasn’t going to be an easy capture. She wasn’t
supposed
to be. Miles was, and he’d fucked that up royally.

Miles didn’t understand why Hank didn’t respond to her six text messages after being so insistent she phone him. She couldn’t phone him, though. Her cell reception had been spotty during the entire trip, and believe it or not—pay phones were actually not as easy to come by as one might have thought. She sent the texts and hoped they’d suffice, only to get silence in return.

Maybe he’s busy,
she thought as she waited at the airport curb for Glenda and Jamie to pick her and Travis up.

For a three-year-old, Travis was very quiet, though he seemed curious enough with the way his dark gaze fixed so intently on people when they were speaking. Just like Marta Fitz had said, he’d gone along nicely with Miles, but she could tell she wasn’t who he’d wanted. He’d been hoping his mother would come.

Now, Glenda had one extra mouth to feed—at least until Marta got her act together, which Miles hoped would be sooner than later. She could tell the lady really loved her kids. She just wasn’t well-equipped to be a parent at the moment—much like Nick’s mother, Jill.

The ranch had its usual hum of activity when they returned. Sean and a man who, from a distance, looked like Tito were constructing something in the pasture the Cougars used for gatherings.
The barbecue?

Mason was watching a FedEx driver load large parcels into his truck and held Nick in the crook of one arm while he did it.

Some ranch hands milled around the barn as a driver backed out a pickup filled with hay bales.

And there was Ellery with the witches inside the gazebo where they were probably having their monthly meeting. Mrs. Perez sat inside, looking on and waving what looked like a church fan in front of her face. Ellery’s arm was slung over a shoulder belonging to a woman with a familiar white-blond braid.

“Is that Hannah?”

Glenda pulled up her parking brake. “It certainly is. Her being out of the basement on her own accord is a baby step, but we’ll take what we can get.”

“I don’t know. With Hannah, sometimes a baby step is a mile.” Miles could only hope that was the case, not only for Sean’s sake, but for Hannah’s, as well. Miles wanted to see her friend find her match in someone, and she’d never thought that would be an easy thing. He might have been right there on the Double B Ranch, a thirty-second walk from Hannah.

They all got out, and once Miles ensured Jamie wasn’t going to drop Travis on his head, she looked toward the house of the one person who seemed to be missing…right as her phone chirped.

I know you’re busy, but I worry.

Confused, she tapped the screen for the time stamp. The message was from a day ago. “Oh,
damn
.” Hank
had
tried. She put the phone in her pocket and took off at a jog for the house to apologize.

Then she stopped. Why was she always the first one to offer up an apology? She wanted to see him, and badly—to look at his face and search it for signs she’d made the wrong choice by pushing him back, although in her gut she knew it was right. She’d had to say those things, and running to him as if he were the air she breathed wasn’t going to fix anything. In fact, it might make things worse.

First things first
.

She turned on her heel and made tracks toward Tito and Sean.

Tito held his arms open upon her approach. “C’mon. You know what I want.”

She laughed. “Just leave me with a
little
air this time, okay? I’m not as durable as you guys.”

He proceeded to squeeze 95 percent of the life out of her, purring contentedly as he did it.

Sean laughed, but it wasn’t his usual unrestrained bark. Just a quiet chuckle. The stress with Hannah was likely sapping him of his good humor. The fact he could laugh at all said a lot about his character. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d bring down the mood of a group, even when it was expected. “Don’t let Hank catch you. He might consider it a challenge.”

Tito set her down and waved dismissively. “Eh, I ain’t worried about him. What’s he gonna do? Yell at me because I’m suave enough to get me a hug?”

“
So
suave.” Sean cleared his throat and bent to pick up a length of metal grating.

“Wanna get me up to speed?” she asked softly, cutting her gaze toward the gazebo.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. She won’t talk to me, but whatever Hank said to her made her come outside without any bloodshed.”

“What do you mean, what Hank said to her?”

“Dunno. He pushed past me and unlocked the basement. There was about half an hour of yelling, and he emerged, no worse the wear, and she followed him. He passed her off to Ellery and told me he’d be back in a couple of hours. I think he went to town. I know nothing.”

Miles ground her back molars. “He yelled at my friend?” Miles hadn’t been around for him to tie into emotional knots, so he’d found a substitute?

“It’s his prerogative, really. For as long as she’s in the glaring, which…may not be long.”

“Sean—”

He gave her a dismissive wave. “Come on, Miles. We both know better. Even the cat part of my brain thinks the best thing for everyone would be me letting her go home.”

“You can’t let her go home. You need to fix this.” The cold, hard truth was that if Miles had to pick between her friend and the glaring, she’d choose the glaring. Hannah had been part of Miles’s very small family-by-choice for ten years, but in the glaring, Miles had more people looking out for her than she knew what to do with. Sure, it felt stifling sometimes thanks to Hank’s long reach, but these people cared and she cared about them. She wanted them to care about Hannah, too. Hannah could give so much to the group if she let herself.

Sean gave her a slow nod. “I’m open to suggestions. Tell me what to say and I’ll say it to her, if she lets me get close.”

“I’ll come up with something. Give me some time.”

“All right. I trust you.”

“
Segundita
,” Tito said in a stage whisper, and nudged Sean’s ribs with his elbow.

“You made that up, didn’t you?”

She turned on her heel, intending to march over to the coven, but the sound of a familiar F-250 engine growled up the path and she started toward its owner’s house instead.

Triage. Important things first.

She was in Hank’s face before he could get the truck door closed.

“Hey, you didn’t—”

“I thought you were going to do better.” She didn’t really care to hear what he had to say. Apparently, his word meant nothing, and she was going to call him on it.

He furrowed his brow and strode to the back of the truck. He let the tailgate down and loosened the cords holding his cargo in place. “Can you carry this for me, please?” He placed a stack of paint roller trays and assorted other painting supplies in her arms before she could refuse.

He grabbed a ten-gallon bucket of white paint.

“What is this?”

“Cleaned up a little. I need to prime everything before I go back to work.” He slammed the tailgate shut and canted his head toward the house. “You’re mad at me for some reason. Tell me why while we walk.”

“You waited until I was gone to scare the snot out of my friend.”

He stopped walking and turned to her. “
What
?”

“I was going to deal with Hannah. She’s my friend. I know Sean’s your brother, but it’s like I told you. You have to get out of my way sometimes and trust that I have a decent brain in my head.”

“I didn’t scare the snot out of her. We just had a very loud conversation, and I suspect that’s par for the course with her.”

“I…” Her jaw flapped wordlessly a few beats. Maybe loud
was
Hannah’s usual style, but still… Miles straightened her spine and cleared her throat. “A very loud discussion about what?”

A couple of ranch hands puttered past on Glenda’s four-wheeler and parked it beside the sag in the fence. Right in earshot.